The 2026 Session Asked One Question: Who Does Government Trust?

The 2026 legislative session has ended, but the questions it raised are far from over.

Every session produces bills. Some pass. Some fail. Some improve the law. Some make government larger, costlier, and less accountable. But beneath the titles, fiscal notes, amendments, and floor votes, this session asked one deeper question again and again: Who does government trust?

Does it trust parents, homeowners, taxpayers, small businesses, law enforcement, local communities, and voters?

Or does it trust centralized power in Denver to make more decisions for them?

That question shaped nearly every major debate this year.

Colorado families entered this session under real pressure. Housing remains unaffordable for too many families. Public safety remains a serious concern. The cost of living keeps rising. Employers continue to face a tax and regulatory climate that makes it harder to invest, hire, and grow. The state budget is strained. Communities like Castle Rock, The Pinery, Castle Pines Village, and Douglas County are being asked to absorb decisions made by people who do not live with the consequences.

The House Republican Caucus understood those pressures. As the House Minority Newsletter said at the close of session, families across Colorado faced unaffordable housing, public safety concerns, cost-of-living increases, and economic uncertainty. It also warned that many bills advanced by the majority reduced accountability for crime, added anti-Second Amendment measures, and imposed new taxes and regulatory burdens that ultimately reach taxpayers.

That was the defining conflict of the session.

Republicans came to the Capitol focused on affordability, safety, opportunity, constitutional rights, and accountable government. The majority too often answered those problems with more mandates, more bureaucracy, more spending, more taxes, and less local authority.

That does not mean nothing good happened. Good bills passed. Worthwhile ideas moved forward. Republicans secured important wins. But the broader pattern should concern every Coloradan who believes government works best when it respects the people closest to the problem.

Public safety must mean more than good intentions.

One of the most important issues in this session was public safety.

Coloradans deserve compassion in the justice system. Mental illness is real. Addiction is real. Human brokenness is real. But compassion loses its moral force when it ignores victims, families, law enforcement, and the public’s right to safety.

That is why SB26-149 mattered. It addressed a serious competency loophole by creating a pathway for civil commitment or enhanced protective placement in cases involving serious allegations and ongoing danger. The bill recognizes that treatment and public safety are not enemies. A person may need care, but the public still deserves protection. That is not cruelty. That is ordered compassion. The Colorado General Assembly bill page identifies SB26-149 as Pathways for Individuals with Mental Health Disorder.

SB26-011 also represented the kind of public safety legislation Colorado needs. Modern crime often moves through digital platforms. Threats, exploitation, trafficking, stalking, fraud, and fentanyl distribution can all depend on speed, secrecy, and online coordination. SB26-011 requires covered platforms to maintain a staffed process for law enforcement, acknowledge warrants within 8 hours, and comply within 72 hours when statutory conditions are met. That is practical. It gives law enforcement a workable tool without pretending technology changed the basic duty of government to protect the innocent.

At the same time, the session showed a troubling willingness to weaken accountability. HB26-1281 would have changed certain homicide offenses involving extreme indifference. The House Minority Newsletter warned that the bill would have reduced certain first-degree murder charges to second-degree murder, making some offenders parole-eligible after conduct that showed grave disregard for human life. It passed the House by one vote, then died after Senate Republicans held the line.

That defeat mattered.

A civilization announces its values by how it treats human life. When a person is killed through conduct that shows extreme indifference to human life, the law must speak with moral clarity. Victims are not abstractions. Families are not process points. Public safety is not a slogan.

Affordability cannot be solved by making Colorado harder to afford.

Affordability was one of the dominant themes of the session. It should have been.

Colorado is too expensive. Families feel it at the grocery store, at the gas pump, in their rent, in their mortgage, in their property taxes, in their insurance bills, and in the cost of doing business.

But too many proposals treated affordability as a reason to expand government power rather than reduce the pressures government helped create.

The tax package built around HB26-1221, HB26-1222, and HB26-1223 was the clearest example. The House Minority Newsletter described those bills as a coordinated package that would raise taxes on employers, roll back pro-growth provisions, narrow the sales tax exemption for downloaded software, and divert money away from TABOR refunds. HB26-1221 and HB26-1222 died in Senate Finance, but HB26-1223 passed.

That is the wrong direction.

Colorado should not punish investment and then call it affordability. It should not make it harder to hire, harder to grow, harder to innovate, and harder to stay in business, then wonder why families struggle to keep up. A healthy economy does not come from state redistribution after the government has made production more expensive. It comes from a climate where work, risk, investment, and enterprise can flourish.

The same principle applies to small businesses. HB26-1033, the Cottage Foods expansion, pointed in the better direction. It expanded opportunities for small producers while retaining important consumer safeguards. That kind of legislation recognizes something central to economic life: many Coloradans do not need government to create opportunity for them. They need the government to stop making the first step so hard.

Housing policy must respect the people who live with the consequences.

Housing was another major theme this session. No serious person denies the problem. Families need places to live. Young people need a path to ownership. Seniors need stability. Workers need communities they can afford.

But housing policy cannot become an excuse for Denver to override every local community.

Local control is not a slogan. It is the mechanism by which communities govern the real conditions of life: roads, schools, water, traffic, density, emergency services, open space, drainage, and neighborhood character.

That is why this session’s housing mandates were so concerning. HB26-1001 and similar proposals tried to move more authority away from local residents and local governments. These bills may be marketed as an affordability policy, but the effect is often to reduce the ability of communities to plan responsibly.

Douglas County is not Denver. Castle Rock is not Boulder. The Pinery is not Aurora. Castle Pines Village is not downtown Colorado Springs.

A state that ignores those distinctions does not govern wisely. It governs from a distance.

This session also showed a better way to think about housing. HB26-1061, my Community Integration Housing Tax Credits bill, focused on individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The bill would have required a portion of federal low-income housing tax credits to be set aside for community integration housing and would have prioritized state affordable housing tax credits for qualifying developments. The Colorado General Assembly summary explains that the bill focused on integrated, community-based housing for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

That is targeted. That is humane. That is disciplined.

Government should be most attentive to those who are most easily overlooked. Supporting individuals with IDD is not a political talking point. It is a measure of whether we understand the dignity of every person.

The rule of law requires both compassion and boundaries.

Immigration and law enforcement were also central to the session.

This debate is often framed falsely. Some suggest that enforcing the law means lacking compassion. Others suggest that compassion means refusing to enforce the law.

Both are wrong.

A lawful society needs both compassion and boundaries. The law protects citizens. It also protects immigrants from exploitation, trafficking, chaos, and political manipulation. A nation that refuses to enforce its laws does not become more humane. It becomes less honest and less stable.

Several bills and debates this session pushed Colorado further into conflict with federal immigration enforcement. That is dangerous. Law enforcement should never be turned against law enforcement. State and local policy should not train officers to view federal officers as enemies. Public safety requires cooperation, clarity, and constitutional order.

This matters far beyond immigration. Once the government teaches citizens that law is optional when political leaders dislike the law, trust begins to collapse. A republic cannot survive long under selective obedience.

Our Second Amendment remains under assault.

The right to keep and bear arms remains one of the most contested constitutional issues in Colorado.

HB26-1021, the Second Amendment Protection Act, was introduced to protect constitutional rights. It died in committee. The Colorado General Assembly lists it as a bill concerning measures to protect Second Amendment rights and shows that it was postponed indefinitely in the House Judiciary Committee.

At the same time, HB26-1126 advanced new requirements for firearms dealers. The House Minority Newsletter warned that the bill creates a duplicative state regulatory system beside the existing federal framework, expands the definition of responsible person, imposes burdensome mandates, and authorizes fines up to $100,000.

The issue is not whether dangerous criminals should be stopped. They should be.

The issue is whether Colorado keeps directing its force at lawful citizens and lawful businesses while violent offenders, repeat offenders, and organized criminal behavior remain the more serious threat.

Rights do not become less important because some people abuse freedom. They become more important when the government is tempted to punish the law-abiding for the conduct of the lawless.

Voter trust was one of the clearest tests of the session.

Near the end of the session, HB26-1430 raised a profound issue. The bill was contingent on voter approval of a proposed transportation funding initiative and would adjust fuel taxes, vehicle registration fees, road usage fees, and transportation fund allocations. The Colorado General Assembly summary states that the bill is contingent on voter approval of a proposed constitutional initiative related to transportation funding.

The technical details matter. But the deeper issue matters more.

When lawmakers begin preparing workarounds before voters even speak, citizens notice. They may not know every line of the bill. They may not follow every amendment. But they understand the posture.

They understand when the government appears to ask for the people’s permission while preparing to limit the effect of the people’s answer.

That is a serious trust problem.

The initiative process belongs to the people. It should not be treated as an obstacle to be managed by the legislature. If voters are asked to decide a question, elected officials should respect the outcome with humility.

Republicans did not control the chamber, but they mattered.

It is easy to measure a legislative session only by what passed. That misses much of the work.

A minority caucus still matters when it forces debate, exposes consequences, improves bills, stands with stakeholders, and stops dangerous ideas from becoming law.

The House Minority Newsletter highlighted that Republicans secured meaningful victories, passed legislation on veterans’ mental health, competency reform, regulatory review, penalties for commercial sexual activity with a child, and timely platform responses to law enforcement warrants. It also noted broader caucus work on safe haven laws, agricultural overtime thresholds, juvenile motorcycle licensing, constitutional carry, honest testimony, and local control.

That work matters.

Not every victory becomes a headline. Some victories are bills passed. Some are amendments accepted. Some are bad bills killed. Some are public arguments sharpened. Some are citizens who finally understand what their government is doing.

The session’s lesson is clear.

The 2026 session showed two competing visions for Colorado.

One vision trusts centralized government to solve more problems by taking more authority, collecting more revenue, writing more rules, and overriding more local decisions.

The other vision trusts citizens, families, local communities, law enforcement, small businesses, taxpayers, and constitutional limits.

I stand with the second vision.

I believe the government should protect the vulnerable without weakening public safety.

I believe Colorado can address housing without stripping communities of local control.

I believe we can help families afford life without making it harder for employers to create jobs.

I believe law and compassion belong together.

I believe the Second Amendment is a fundamental right that deserves protection.

I believe voters should be respected before, during, and after they cast their ballots.

And I believe the people of House District 45 deserve direct, honest representation, not slogans, not excuses, and not political theater.

As we move into the interim, my commitment remains the same.

I will keep listening. I will keep reading the bills. I will keep asking who pays, who benefits, who loses authority, and whether the policy respects the people it claims to help.

Colorado does not need more government confidence.

It needs more government humility.

That is the lesson of this session.

And that is the work ahead.